Planet viability | Gameplay basics
Mass Effect: Andromeda Guide

Planet viability is an indicator telling you how well a planet is suited for life. By default, each planet starts with 0% viability - this turns them into hostile environments and makes exploring them almost impossible. Your character will be affected by radiation, low temperatures and toxicity. As the planet viability increases, the environment of the planet will improve - previously inaccessible and highly polluted places will now be practically harmless and water, which not so long ago depleted your life-support meter instantaneously, will now become clear and easy to cross. Planet viability can be increasing by doing the following:

Setting up Forward Stations - each one of those will give you 2% of planet viability. This might not seem much, but you have to take into consideration other benefits of Forward Stations, like the possibility to change your loadout, replenish life-support and fast travel.

Completing side quests - the influence depends on the complexity of the quest. The reward, in most cases, ranges from 2% to 5% per quest.

Completing main quests associated with a given planet. Completing them will give you 10% planet viability.

Destroying an enemy outpost on a planet - up to 10% of planet viability.

Defeating Remnant Architects. There are four of them, one on each major planet. Defeating them will give you a huge experience boost, as well as plenty of planet viability points. Tips on battling those powerful enemies can be found in separate chapters of this guide.

Setting up an outpost. After reaching 40% of a given planet's viability, you will be able to set up an outpost there, gaining 20% planet viability in the process.

Exploring and activating a Remnant Vault. It offers the highest reward from all of the available ones, giving 40% planet viability.

Planet viability is a mechanic that is strongly linked to Andromeda Viability (described in a separate chapter) - each point of planet viability you earn will also give you 1 points of Andromeda Viability. Additionally, even though a planet viability is limited to 100%, you can still farm Andromeda Viability points - it just won't increase the planet's viability any further. What is more, the viability of some of the planets is connected with some of the cryo pods.

To be able to easily reach 100% of a planet viability, earning substantial amount of Andromeda Viability points and unlocking all of the planet-only cryo pods, you need to:

Find, explore and activate a Remnant Vault - 40%

Set up an outpost - 20%.

Unlock all Forward Stations - 2% for every Forward Station.

Complete the main quest on a planet - 10%

Complete a number of side quests.

The first four points presented above will allow you to reach 80-90% of planet viability, depending on the amount of Forward Stations available on the surface of a planet. Afterwards, you just have to complete 2-3 bigger quests to increase the planet viability to 100% and unlock all of the most important items. If, however, you want to unlock all cryo pods, you will need to complete most of the quests on each planet in the game.

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